4-6 (Primus Stove)

In chapter 4 of The Master and Margarita, it is revealed explicitly that it was indeed Annushka who made the ground slippery with her “sunflower oil”, causing Berlioz to fall and die. This fulfills the prediction made by the devil, that “the meeting would not be held” because Annushka had spilled the sunflower oil.

This chapter also marks the first appearance of the “tom cat, huge as a hog, black as pitch or a crow, and with a huge mustache, for all the world like a rakish cavalryman’s”. This is not the only personification of the cat, as it later tried to board a streetcar and, in so doing “brazenly elbowed aside a woman . . , grasped the hand rails and even attempted to give the conductor a coin through the window.” Furthermore, after being ejected from the streetcar, the cat “proceeded to do . . . what anyone else would . . . jump[ing] onto the rear of the last one”. Evidently this is no normal cat – it seems like a human in a cat’s body!

Additionally, Homeless the poet was put into a mental asylum, eliminating any remaining credible evidence of the events surrounding Berlioz’s death.

The swallow that I talked about in my previous post also makes another appearance, at least in reference: “Waving his arms to cool off, Ivan plunged into the water like a swallow.” I am not yet sure of the significance of these birds.
-Primus Stove